Excite
by Tabi
Summary: Yaoi. AkihiroxShin. It's not a good idea to let Shin get bored, but Akihiro has learnt the hard way that it's difficult to keep him very occupied for too long in the first place.


~Excite~

"I'm bored."

Akihiro looked up from the magazine he was reading, a look of vague disinterest crossing his brow. Shin didn't look at him as he spoke, sprawled across the sofa and staring pointedly out of the window. Sunshine. Blue sky. Summer. A warm, lazy stillness which spoke of nothing that needed to be done and nothing _to_ do. Were they younger they might have taken advantage of the weather for football or some other sport, exploring the neighbourhood and having adventures where the treasure at stake was the collection of sturdy sticks and interesting stones they found, but age had drained that from them and even the holidays didn't seem so exciting, now. A holiday meant time away from school but the pile of work only increased, teachers seeing the free time as only an excuse to set more work. Projects and essays and assignments, all to be in for after the holiday. Perhaps the sensible thing would have been to get the work out of the way first, but sensible was never _fun_ and it would lie there until the Sunday before term started again. Like always.

Akihiro debated throwing the magazine at Shin, but then weighed up his options; doing so would probably incense him for a moment, but on the other hand Akihiro hadn't finished reading the current article and while not life-changing, the words were at least distracting. He leant back against the chair instead, "What do you expect me to do about it?"

"Don't know."

"Well, then."

The silence resumed and Akihiro thought nothing of it, falling back into that easy kind of stupor as he read without really taking the meaning in. Occasionally he'd stop across a word or line that interested him and would attempt to read the paragraph over from the beginning to get the gist again, but this was too much effort and the entire exercise seemed pointless, though there wasn't much else to do. Every so often he'd flick his eyes over the top of the magazine to look at Shin, but he seemed occupied enough still staring out of the window. Presumably whatever was going through his mind was more interesting, or--

"... I'm _bored_, Jinguuji."

-- maybe not.

"Checked the TV listings? Put a DVD on. Go write a song, or something. Learn to paint, rediscover the natural beauty of humanity, bake a cake. If you're that bored that you can keep complaining at me about it then you're bored enough to do something about it."

"... I'm bored with _you_, Akihiro. You're boring me."

The silence that came after that was quite different; charged, somehow. Akihiro glared over the top of his magazine before putting it flat against his lap, "... _Thanks_."

Shin wondered if he was the only person who could get away with saying something like that to someone like Akihiro; Akihiro knew that he was.

"You don't scare me anymore."

Akihiro leant his head against one hand, "Isn't that a good thing?"

Shin still didn't look at him. "... Maybe that's the wrong word. Still... you did, once."

"Once?"

"Just once. Then I got used to you."

The sky outside lay as still and impassive as ever, giving nothing away. All the silence seemed to prove was that it was never a good idea to leave Nishimura Shin to his own devices; Akihiro could only stare with a silent kind of despair as he _knew_ that he didn't know what to say, didn't know if there was anything _to_ say. Hated that Shin could say so easily that he'd got used to Akihiro so quickly when even now, Akihiro felt he was nowhere near being 'used' to Shin in return. Being used to someone, knowing someone, being able to predict them in that easygoing sort of way... even after all of this time, Shin was still an enigma. An enigma borne of unease and unpredictability, still the serene timebomb he ever was. Akihiro wondered if this would ever change and if, maybe, this change could even ever be something to do with him... and the fact that he didn't know felt as hopeless as anything else. When you cared about someone you wanted to help them, not let yourself get drawn into their downward spiral of strangeness and dark and Shin looked up at Akihiro, his eyes wide and asking something Akihiro still didn't know how to answer.

"... Well, isn't it good to be used to people, too? Means you know how they work, means you can fit yourself better to them. Like how I always know to pick you up an onigiri when I'm going past the convenience store. Isn't it good like that? I know your stomach likes that even if you say you don't, so don't you dare say otherwise."

Shin sighed deeply, as if frustrated by something. "You don't know what I mean."

Akihiro kept his voice flat. "True, but _that's_ nothing new."

"... Name me some exciting things."

Supposing it didn't cause any harm to humour Shin his mood, Akihiro glanced up at the ceiling as he pondered the issue. "Meeting someone famous? Going somewhere new. Going to eat at a favourite restaurant. Supporting a sports team doing something or other. Leaving fireworks in Enami-sensei's desk drawer. Uh... watching a really good film. Getting into a manga. Beating a hard boss in a videogame. Going on a rollercoaster."

"Not like that."

"Getting laid? That's pretty exciting."

Shin didn't seem to see that response as deserving of a direct answer and so let the silence settle for a few moments before speaking again. "... What about... what about when you're listening to a piece of music. And it makes you want something, though you couldn't say what you wanted or how you wanted it. That's... a kind of excitement, isn't it? A sort of yearning."

"... I guess?"

"... I want to _yearn_, Akihiro..."

Akihiro could only frown confusion, "Then go sing or listen to some music or something, whatever."

It seemed that there were many things in the world that couldn't be described, and Shin's expression on Akihiro's dismissive tone was one of them.

_I want to be excited_.

Back then, that one time. The sunset painting itself over memory with vivid brushstrokes. The long shadows, the slow breathing. The voice in Shin's mind that said _you should be scared_. The part of him that was. The part of him that wasn't. The part of him which invited the unknown and let Akihiro in, the feelings that felt like _feeling_ for the first time in too long. Feeling exhilarated. Feeling _alive_.

Feeling the power of being able to coerce Akihiro, to make him angry, to make him inconsiderate. To be hurt was still a feeling and it was the kind that Shin cherished, and even as Akihiro refused he goaded him on, bewitching words in the still summer air. The words that hung from the silence as feeling had seemed to back then, even the sound of the fountain drowned out by the distraction and the pounding of heartbeats and the rush of blood inside. These words that stirred that, that stirred what that was and what that had _meant_. And it was different now, so very different, but still the same. And it was impossible to describe the look on Shin's face as he knelt in front of Akihiro, the magazine thrown aside; it was impossible to say what he meant when he took Akihiro's hands and placed them around his neck with a smile, fingers digging so hard against Akihiro's skin that he would have withdrawn his hands had he had the strength against Shin's determination, which he didn't. Instead, he winced and Shin smiled and silent words still lay suspended in the pauses between the two of them.

_I want to hurt, Akihiro._

_I want you to hurt me._

_I want to feel pain._

_I want to feel._

_I want._

It was different when somebody was only doing what you told them to, but it seemed that Akihiro had long forgotten the ability of acting such by his own free will. The familiarity between them had cultivated some form of affection which Shin found tiresome sometimes, but when that affection could be translated into subservience then it was almost as good as the alternative. Akihiro learnt quickly, if nothing else. Shin had told him many times before, the things that he wanted; it was just finding the right verbal cue to persuade Akihiro into such things.

They lay together afterward, the air thick and still with something different than before. In that room was something kept, something that would change if the window or door were opened. If they moved, if they stood, the mood would be broken. So instead they lay together, less content in the moment and more petrified on the likelihood of that fragile thing shattering on movement, on focus, on ending. Shin regained his breath, but the bruises on his neck would stay. The blood dried, but the skin would likely scar. He hurt, and yet he smiled. There was something of that sunset by the fountain trapped in that Saturday morning sunlight. He smiled. He laughed softly. He stroked Akihiro's hair. Pain still sang through him and the aches would remain for days but that didn't matter.

_Wasn't that exciting?_

Akihiro only stared up at the ceiling, flinching on Shin's movement. He closed his eyes. Shin had been scared once before? He was scared now. Something had changed between them, some kind of exchange. Some days, Akihiro felt he'd do anything to see Shin's smile. Days like this, the reality was more frightening than anything he could have imagined. How could a smile be so frightening?

_I'm scared, Shin._

Pride didn't let him say such words out loud and he doubted Shin would have understood them even if they _were_ spoken. And yet Shin still smiled, and so maybe it was all worth it, somehow. Maybe. Perhaps. Akihiro didn't feel he knew what anything was worth anymore.

_I'm frightened._

Things like that made Akihiro feel that they shouldn't stay together after all.

Things like that made Shin feel that they should.

~_fin_~


End file.
